I have a feeling that many users of the FD-4 will never used the editing facilities, although they will always be there should the need arise...

Editing

I have a feeling that many users of the FD-4 will never used the editing facilities,
although they will always be there should the need arise. As with all non-computer
based hard disk recorders in the lower-than-stratospheric price bracket, editing
is really only useful for cutting sections out of songs, repeating choruses
and that kind of thing. If you want to build up a song out of loops and short
audio segments you need a computer and appropriate software. Nevertheless, the
FD-4s editing functions are very useful in the right context. Marking
out a section to be cut, for example, involves setting start and end points.
Start points can be found approximately by hitting the Hold or Store key on
the fly. They can then be fine tuned using the jog/shuttle wheel or the preview
function. The jog/shuttle wheel, I have to say, is one of the worst I have come
across. It is partially recessed and it is difficult to get a firm grip on it,
and it doesnt scrub like other hard disk recorders do, emulating
the old method of manually moving analogue tape against the recorders
heads. When done well, this provides a quick and easy method of finding and
edit point, and all the pro machines have it. The FD-4 on the other hand plays
repeatedly a very short segment of audio - around 100ms I would estimate - which
slides backwards and forwards in time as you turn the wheel. It is usable but
far from ideal, and it sounds pretty unpleasant too. The preview function is
a little better where the FD-4 cycles a creates a two second cycle allowing
you to hear the last second up to an edit point, or after an edit point where
appropriate. This you can trim in real time as it loops round. Once you have
found your edit points you can copy a segment (from any number of adjacent tracks)
and paste it elsewhere, or move the segment leaving silence behind. If there
is something on the disk you dont like, you can simply erase it. What
the FD-4 lacks is a delete function that will close up the gap so you can get
rid of a whole section of a song if you dont like it and butt the remaining
portions together. You can achieve much the same thing using the copy function
but its not as straightforward a process as it should be. The editing
functions also include track exchange where data can be swapped among playback
tracks, and also to and from the two additional tracks in Mastering 1 mode.

Sound quality-wise the Fostex FD-4 is well up to current digital standards,
and even the data compressed normal mode, if not entirely transparent, is surprisingly
good through three or four generations of bouncing. It is definitely far far
better than cassette and it is attractively priced (even with a Zip or Eziflyer
drive taken into account) compared to similarly featured Minidisc units. Overall,
I am confident that the FD-4 is capable of excellent results and it is very
recommendable.

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